Doctor Alcazar laughed too — a rich and muted and mellow laugh. He said, “Mr. de Vries, skeptics are — if I may be permitted the phrase — just my meat...”
He raised his own glass and sipped at it, studying Mr. de Vries.
Nervous. Might be really scared. Hopes I’m a phoney but isn’t sure. Keep at him.
“May I ask,” said Doctor Alcazar, looking at his hostess, “how much you have told Mr. de Vries of our experiment?”
“As much as he’d listen to. About you seeing Lily — and describing her; and then about the paper and string...”
“Ah!” said Doctor Alcazar. “That string! That green-and-gold string!” He looked at Clinton de Vries, as if waiting his opinion.
De Vries hesitated. He played with his wineglass. He said, “Yes — very int’resting. Very int’resting. But—” He didn’t go on.
He doesn’t like it. Keep close, keep punching.
“Indeed, yes,” said Doctor Alcazar. “Very interesting!” His voice had taken on a subtle shade of mysticism, and the eyes he turned on Mrs. de Vries wore the far-off look of a visionary. He said:
“You say I seemed excited when I telephoned you. I was. I had been at work on our problem and I had seen—” he paused, most effectively — “the most extraordinary thing! I had seen — perhaps to you I should say sensed — I had sensed something which made me realize that the green-and-gold string, and the violet paper, were not obtrusions of your psychotic stream, Mrs. de Vries — but truly part of Lily Morton’s!”
Doctor Alcazar sat back in his chair, rested his hands on the table, and turned his striking eyes and their faraway look on his host again.
“I believe,” said Doctor Alcazar, “that the unknown ‘George’ is the murderer of Lily Morton...”
From the end of the table, the little gray-headed woman stared at him with wide, horrified eyes. She was about to speak — but her husband spoke first.
He said, “Good God!” very sharply — and then, too smoothly, “Now that is the most preposterous notion!”
“Clinton!” said Gloria de Vries. She turned to Doctor Alcazar. “But... but... are you sure, Doctor?”
Smiling, Clinton de Vries lifted his glass. But something happened — something went wrong with the movement. The glass slipped from his hand and fell to the table, tilting out a pool of wine and snapping its fragile stem.
“Oh — too bad, too bad!” said Doctor Alcazar, and was busily helpful with his napkin.
Keep close; keep punching.
Doctor Alcazar, his labors over, looked again at Mrs. de Vries. He said, “You ask, am I sure of this strange union of ‘George’ and Lily Morton’s murderer?... To be frank, Miss Dru — Mrs. de Vries, I am not. Not yet. But I do feel convinced that one more evocation of the psychomantic waves will bring—” he shrugged — “either confirmation or the reverse.”
“Oh, Doctor!” She leaned towards him eagerly. “Is there — can you — I mean, couldn’t you do it here?...”
It worked — it worked!
“If you would like that,” said Doctor Alcazar benignly, “I’m sure it could be arranged... Unless, of course, Mr. de Vries has any objection...”
Hold your breath!
“Go ahead, go ahead!” said Clinton de Vries. “Matter of fact, I think I’ll sit in — if you don’t mind.”
A-aah!
“No, no. In fact, quite the contrary,” said Doctor Alcazar.
And less than twenty minutes later, in the long and pleasant room where he had first met Mrs. de Vries, he was once again seated before the desk near the French windows, raptly concentrating upon the small crystal globe before him. Again, the only lighted lamp in the room was the one upon the desk beside him. But this time it was night, and the darkness was real darkness instead of simulated dusk. To each side of him, only just within the faintest outer fringes of the light, sat Mrs. de Vries, to his right — and Mr. de Vries, to his left.
As he sat, Doctor Alcazar’s whole body seemed to grow tense, and he said, in a hushed yet urgent voice:
“Ah! Here is something!... The crystal is clouding...”
His voice grew lower, thicker. It said, slowly, dragging out the words:
“In the mist — a tree. A eucalyptus, bent and gnarled and twisted. Its branches look like hands reaching down... It stands in a patch of wasteland... The mist is closing in and I cannot see... Ah! The crystal is clearing again — but the tree is changing. It is not a tree, it is a post standing upright from the ground. The post that I saw before — violet-colored, and with green-and-gold rope coiling around it... A figure comes up to the post, creeping and furtive. A man’s figure. I can only see his back — the back of the man I have seen in the crystal before. The back of the unknown ‘George’...”
Doctor Alcazar paused, drawing in a deep and sighing breath. He listened, but heard nothing. No sound. No movement.
“The figure is uncoiling the rope from the post. In his hands the rope becomes cord... He is tearing down the post, and in his hands it becomes paper — sheet upon sheet of wrapping-paper, violet-colored. As he folds it, his shoulders shake. I cannot see his face, but I know that he is laughing. An evil, gloating, malevolent laugh. He is planning evil; evil to someone associated with this strangely-colored string and paper...
“The image is changing again. It is a room — a familiar room — this room! The morning sun streams through the windows. There is no one here. But on the desk — on this desk! — is a package. A package wrapped in violet paper and tied with green-and-gold string...”
Again Doctor Alcazar paused, and now he heard movements from his audience. Little shiftings and twitchings.
He bowed lower over the glittering little globe in front of him and said, the eerie monotone deepening:
“Someone is entering the room. A woman. Gloria. She comes to the desk. She examines the package. She tears off the wrappings, delighted.
“Ah! be careful, Gloria! You think this is a gift sent with love — but it is a gift sent with cold and deadly purpose... A gift which is meant, like all its forerunners, to lull you into a sense of false security... There is a mordant, miasmic aura surrounding that package, Gloria! One day — some day, any day — a package like this will come, and you will be happy about it, and trustful — but it will spell your death...”
From the shadows on the right came the sound of a woman’s voice; a startled formless little sound.
“...The image changes... Another room — and Lily is here, Lily Morton... She is staring in amazement at something she has found. String — green-and-gold string. And paper — violet-colored paper... They are unused; that is why she is astonished. Finding them here has shown her the identity of ‘George’...
“The knowledge troubles her. She doesn’t know what to do. She takes a small piece of the paper, a little coil of the string...
“She is gone... But now comes the image of ‘George’ again... Still I cannot see his Lice. He is staring after Lily. He knows she has discovered him...
“Now he is beneath the twisted tree again. It is stark and gaunt against the night sky. He is waiting... He hears approaching footsteps. Lily’s footsteps. He tenses. Lily approaches. He leaps at her, strikes...